And that is not right either!!

 I finally got signed in so I can write my blog, but sadly this will not last long!  I am locked out of every bank account,  facebook, etsy, paypal,  my mail, and anything else I ever hoped to do!  My internet went south on me for a few days and when I got it back up and running everything else was new to me!  

I  had something I wanted to tell you, but I forgot what it was.  I do have a new dog.  Her name is Minerva. .  She is a black and white Heeler and she actually likes me.  Sadly she tries to hug my legs when I am walking, which makes me a little nervous since I have brittle bones and stuff!  Not sure I can pay for a broken hip on my budget.

So hopefully, the Internet will stay up for a while and I can get in a few of my accounts and life will be good again.  Sure missed writing the last month or so.

Right now I am very sleepy so I am going to bed.  Hope to be in touch again tomorrow with lots of catching up to do!

Peace!

As twilight falls....

 When I awake in the morning, I usually reflect on times gone by.  Often they are waaaaaaaaaaaaay bygone, but sometimes more recent.  This morning I was counting my blessing, one of which is that I still seem to have a healthy body and a good portion of my mind at my disposal!  But then I drifted to a place where a friend of mine named Nancy was stored.

Nancy was a lady, to say the very least.  She was very smart having a background in teaching both in primary school , but later in college.  She was married with 4 children, grown and gone.  The children were also very smart and successful in their chosen fields.  She was always very well groomed and never seemed to be flustered by anything life handed her.  She was a widow by the time I met her.

She and I were both retired and widowed.  She lived with two sons who were old enough to have families, but had never married nor reproduced.  My family was grown and gone on to build lives outside of the Pueblo area. So as two settled in our lives adults, we became friends.  

As such we went to lunch usually once a week.  Sometimes she prepared food and sometimes I did.  But mostly I would pick her up and we would go "out for lunch".  We took turns picking up the check or we went dutch.  Just depended on our mood.  We would then go for a walk somewhere interesting, like the Nature Center, or one of the nearby parks.  Just two adult women killing a little time and catching up on the weeks events.  But that all changed.

Sometimes there would be a lapse in the conversation that lasted longer than it should.  I would ask a question and she would smile at me.  Usually she was waiting on the porch when I arrived since I called her from a block away, but sometimes I would have to go to the door.  It became my responsibility to do all the driving at one point.

Then I began to notice, her hair which was a beautiful silver, was not always combed.  Our conversations became more me talking and her listening.  Then our weekly lunches became further apart.  She never called me, I always called her.  So we began to drift apart.  Then her daughter called to tell me that she had gone into a senior retirement home, temporarily.  Of course I went to see her.

She was the perfect lady, as usual.  She began to talk about how she remembered the kindness my son had shown her when he removed a tree from her yard.  My son lives in Dallas, so I was sure that was a hallucination.  The next visit she asked if I would like her to make us lunch.  She explained that she had lots of food in her refrigerator and opened the door to reveal one orange and a bottle of water.  I knew the facility had a dining hall so she was fed, but she sure was not equipped to prepare a meal from that meager refrigerator.  My heart broke that day.  

I never went back.  She had no idea who I was, so I did not want to further confuse her.  It just broke my heart that such a beautiful and brilliant woman could have this happen to her and she did not even know it was going on.  She passed a few weeks later.  I guess that is how this disease works.  You forget your friends, your family and then your body.  It is so sad, but then it is over.

I miss her.  I will always miss her, but I miss a lot of people at my age.  It looks like I am destined to live for a long time because I have the genes for it.  I do not think I have the dementia gene because only one member of my family ever had it, to my knowledge.  My hope is that I will get older, have a clear mind and then just drop dead watching the geese chasing grasshoppers in the back yard.

Momma always used to say  "God will never give you more than you can handle."  Momma is right.

Momma was always right!

Peace! 

Life is becoming a blur!

I let the doggie out early.  Early to me is 4:30 AM today.  Sometimes early is 2:00.  It all depends on what time I wake up and what the prospects are of falling back to sleep.  It just seems kind of futile to lay there and wait for sleep to come when my mind is racing and I know there is not any hope of the arms of the sleep goddess cradling me into the oblivion that I welcome.  Back to the point.

I let the doggie out and of course he wants me to walk around with him, because he is apparently afraid of the dark.  I am here to tell you that fall is in the air!  I know it is hard to imagine when the afternoon sun warms us up to 100+ degrees, but it is coming.  The trees have the gentle rustle that tells me the leaves are drying and soon they will be yellow and falling.  Where did the time go!

It seems it was last week that I was poking around to find the Crocus that grow by the car port.  I was unhooking the hoses when I used them so that if it froze I would not lose the hydrant.  I was going to have a yard sale!  What happened with that?  Course I was going to have one of those last year and did not make it.  I did not even get the things that keep your neck cool made for the migrant workers.  Were there any migrant workers?  Are tomatoes ready to be canned?  This year went by so fast!

Wait a minute!  My whole life has gone by like a blur!  I am now old.  At least I think I am old.  I do not feel old, but I look at the obituaries daily in hopes my name is there and find people way younger than me.  My great grandmother lived to be 104 and until the last month of her life she was puttering in Aunt Mabel's kitchen and had all her wits about her.  On that scenario I could be looking at another 30 years.  Ah, come on, God!  Give me a break here!  That is a lot of putting on of the night gown and a lot of brushing of the teeth and filling the gas tank about 720 more times.  Let's put this in perspective here!

I have been a good girl, most of the time.  I have not killed anyone and tried to be honest.  I help my fellow man and can count on one finger how many times I have been drunk in the last 45 years.  I have pretty well followed the 10 commandments.  I do not steal, cheat or bear false witness, and pay my tithe at the church most of the time.  I am way too old to be dying young.

I guess I might as well accept things as they are.  That means I have to get dressed again today.  I have to pick the grandson up from pre-school and then the good part will begin.  5 hours later I will deliver him to his daddy and I will be worn to a frazzle.  I guess when it is all said and done, life is good.

But I hate to think that it is fall already, but the signs are all there!

Have a good one, because we never know when it will be our last one.

Alive and well and wishing otherwise.

I remember back when I was young and starting my life as an adult.  I was filled with hope and joy at the future ahead of me.  I had a wonderful husband who loved me and our life would be complete if we had a child.  Of course it must be a son.  Nothing else would work.  So after a year or so, I finally got pregnant.  And then I had the baby.  It was a girl, heaven forbid so we had to try again right away.  My husband was adamant that the next one be a son.  Whoops!  foiled again.  The third one was also a girl and by this time my loving husband was fed up with me and my failure to give him an heir.  After much begging and pleading, he gave me one last chance.  I was filled with gratitude at this magnanimous man and the kindness he showed me after 3 complete failures.  This time I did it right!  I gave him his son.

Of course that marriage went South like a fart in a whirlwind!  Not even the birth of his son could save it.  But then there was the divorce and then the brief reconciliation.  And then the second divorce which was delayed a bit because I was busy giving birth to my 4th daughter.   All of this is history and is not relevant to much of anything, except facts.  And you do know that the facts as I remember them and how he remembers them are not necessarily the same.  I was 3 years younger than him when we married, but he was 3 years younger then me in his latter years.  Mother always said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the same goes with truth.  One man's truth is another man's fantasy,  much like one man's pleasure is another man's pain.  But I digress.

One thing I have always held dear was life!  I was invincible in my younger years and my zest for life was what kept my head above water when I was sinking in emotional pain.  And I survived.  And here I am today wondering just what in the hell all of that was about.  My kids are grown and gone away and have kids and grandkids of their own.  Mother, father, sisters, brother, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends be damned.  They are all gone.  I try to look up the family tree and see someone above me and it just ain't happening.   And it isn't just the people, every thing is different.  I go to Nickerson and the house is gone.  All the houses on Strong Street have been replaced.  It is still pretty much a ghetto, but it was my ghetto.  I go to Hutchinson, where I spent most of the time with the kids and that house is gone also along with the house next door.

And now I am in Pueblo, Colorado for the last 40 years.  My in-laws are all gone except for one brother in law that I never see.  My husband is gone and has been for almost 20 years.  Where does this all end?  All the pictures on my desk are pictures of the past.  Two old grandma's, a mother and father on their wedding day, a brother as he was frozen in time in the 7th grade.  What do people do when they get too old to be useful any more?  Do they just wither away?  I did the volunteering thing. Now what?  Make cookies?  Water the plants?  How long does that take?

So I lay in my bed at night and go over what I have done and it looks like a pretty pathetic showing in the grand scheme of things.  I remember a dark haired girl and the dreams she had of being a missionary. And I escape to that world.   But then I wake up and I look down at my sleeve and I see, coming out of the sleeve, my mothers hand. 

Today is the first day....

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.  And so it begins.  The Mother's Day High Tea is over and the Yappy Dog Run passed my driveway as I left for church yesterday.  The cups are wrapped and stored in the basement of the church.  This morning I will wrap the tea pots and put them away.  It was a very successful event and I look forward to next year.  The tea is the one time of the year that I get to see a lot of my friends.  This year I had 2 daughters, 2 son-in-laws, 2 granddaughters, 3 great grand sons, my niece Lisa Shea Porter with her husband and daughter and a partridge in a Pear Tree.  The kids got acquainted and a good time was had by all.  But now it is Monday and life moves forward.

When I think about this being the first day of the rest of my life, it seems a  little daunting, but I am pretty sure I can handle it.  All I can say is I had a bumper sticker once that summed it all up for me. It said "If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."  When I was a teenager, I knew I would not live to see 30.  When 30 rolled around and I had 5 kids I was pretty sure 40 was my limit.  40 came and I fell in love and decided I would probably live forever.  Now that I am beginning to fossilize,  I am wondering if age is not just a number?  I have lost a lot of friends and most of my close family.  I am sure there are no uncles or aunts left out there.  The most I could hope for would be a cousin, but I am thinking that is a futile thought.  I have lived in Colorado over half of my life and lost touch of what ever family I had back there.  Do not think I am complaining, because I am not.  I never kept track of them, and by the same token, they never kept track of me.  So there you go!

Now, to the rest of my life.  Many of my friends want to know what I am going to do.  So, let me just weigh out my options.  My 2400 square foot house on one acre of land is pretty much free and clear.  If I sell it, I have to move.  Now where would I move, you ask.  Since I have spent over half my life in Pueblo, Colorado, leaving does not make much sense.  Living in this big house all alone does not make sense either.  I have a cat and 8 geese.  The geese have never lived any where except here, so if I sold the house, the geese would have to stay with the property.  Icarus could move with me, but she has never been a litter box user, preferring rather to use the doggie door and go outside. If I moved into town she would no doubt be ran over the first time the door was opened.

Or, I could get a room mate.  Now, I am sorry, but I can not think of a single soul in my repertoire of friends that I would want to live with and share space with.  I do not want to live with a female who would hog the bathroom and leave things laying here and there.  She would no doubt want to be friends and share secrets, but I am not a secret sharing person.  I thought about maybe a little gay guy, but what if he wanted to throw a party?  I do not want parties and loud music.  I think I am best if I just live alone.  My ideal scenario is just to wake up dead some morning, or better yet, doze off while Jeopardy! is on and just not wake up.  That way, the mortician could just pick me up, the auction house could just sell all my treasures and then...….who knows.

I do not look on death as a bad thing.  Number one, it is inevitable and we are all going to do it sooner or later.  So, rest assured that when that day comes there is going to be one happy woman here!  Before you get excited thinking maybe I have a premonition, think again.  No visions.  No premonitions.  Just the ramblings of an old woman who has been there, done that, and moved on.

Have a good day and remember,

You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself! 

I have miles to go before I sleep.

Spring is here and this is the time of year that I get itchy feet.  I left Hutchison, Kansas in 1977 with my then husband and with everything in a U-haul we moved to Pueblo, Colorado.  Since he had lived here before, it was a returning for him, but for me it was a leap of faith and a complete 180 degrees from my life in Hutchinson.  I gave my mother the keys to my little Lou's Kitchen on 4th Street and fired up the engine on my 1973 Chevy and headed West to seek my fame and fortune.  I was one naive little girl back then.  The husband turned out to be a little less then I hoped.  We did start a business so I had a job to do.  

The husband soon became an ex husband and the job a former place of employment.  At that time I thought about pointing the (now a Cadillac) east and leaving Colorado, but I could not go home a failure, so I stayed.  I went to  College and got a degree in Finance while waiting tables at a small cafe in Bessemer.  I married a local guy and divorced him 2 months later.  Then I met and married Kenneth.  The rest is history.  Through all the years, I made trips to Kansas in the Spring to see the Lilacs.

And, of course, a trip to Hutchinson also called for a stop at Skaets Steak Shop on the corner of 23rd and Main which is the entrance to the State Fairgrounds.  That was the first place I ever worked and a member of my family (sometimes more then one member) has always been on the payroll there.  My sister, Dorothy, had a heart attack and died there.  Luckily they hit the restart button on her and she lived several more years.  

I would meet my friend Joe there for a 2-3 hour coffee.  That was always fun.  I do have a gold elephant I need to send him someday.

But, those days are behind me.  The days of throwing the pistol in the suitcase and driving 8 hours to get anywhere are now behind me.  Water under the bridge.  Lately I have been studying the family tree and I was surprised to find that I am now the top nut on the tree.  I used to ask someone older then me about our lineage, but now I find that the buck stops here.  There is no one to ask.  Damn!  When did that happen?

I think about the trips to Hutch and I get sad that they are no longer.  I have my own Lilac in the back yard.  I feel much like Robert Frost must have felt when he wrote this poem.  Am I really done?  Is this where it ends.  Wait!  I have so much left to do...….

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

So, from someone who knows, life is short.  Love your neighbor, brighten the corner where you are and if perchance you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, stretch your neck over there and have a bite!  You may be right.

Inside my head is a scary place.

Some times I wake up in the middle of the night and just wonder what is going on anyway.  You should know that in the middle of the night I come up with some brilliant ideas.  I even amaze myself at the simple solutions I find to the world problems.  I have written several best seller books in the wee wee hours and blog ideas are so easy at 2:30 in the morning.  My mind is clear and alert and my fingers itch to start typing, but I control myself.  I know if I start my day at 2:30 AM I am going to be dozing off at 1:30 PM and I will be headed for bed about 6 which is not acceptable to the real world.

And isn't it then amazing that when I do click on the writing page, my mind is just as blank as that sheet of paper.  What happened to all the things I came up with when I should have been sleeping?  Now I know that I am supposed to jot down notes when I wake up like that, but I have tried that.  The next morning I read something I have written and wonder what in the hell I was smoking.  "Rodeo, mules, ostrich, breakfast."  I am sure in my sleep induced stupor that made good sense, but in the clear light of morning, it is sheer jibberish.  I even tried the voice activated tape recorder, but by the time I had a brilliant thought, the batteries were dead.  So I have come to this conclusion:  My batteries may be dead.

If I could be the witty, animated person that I am in the middle of the night in the cold hard light of day, I would be a millionaire and everything I wrote would fly off the shelves.  I have come to one conclusion;  there is someone else living in my head along with me.  I know this because I can be talking to someone and looking them right in the eye and listen as they reply, but my mind has gone off to what I need to get at the store, or something that needs done across town.  This scares me.  Today I was reading the Bible reading at church and at the same time I was trimming the tree by the goose house.  Planned every cut, ended the reading, went and set down and baked banana bread in my head.

Before you laugh, I want to tell you that it is scary being me.  I just wonder if any one else has this problem.  You can tell me, because I won't remember it when I blink my eyes.  

The road is a lot shorter than it used to be.

I think back to Nickerson and Strong Street and as I recall, my future stretched before me and the road was very long.  Days were filled with running up and down the dirt road barefooted and playing "Kick the Can" at night.  That was summer.  The sand pit was up the road behind the house.  We were not allowed to go there.  We knew that.  So where do you think we spent the hot afternoons?  Correct.  The sand pit was cool.  We knew we would get a lickin' sure as shit if Momma knew we were in that water, so we made sure we were dry before she got home.  Seems like the name of that sand pit was Vincents.  Athey's sand pit was over on the highway and Mummy's was outside of town near the Arkansas river, so this one had to be Vincent's.  It was not a working pit, so no one was ever around.  Of course there was a "No Trespassing" sign, but we were too little to read it and if we had been able to read it, we had no idea what trespassing meant.

I could not swim when I was little so I always stayed in the low part with the little kids.  To be honest I did not learn to swim until about 10 years ago.  Kenny did not know how to swim either and we took the boat out every weekend in the summer.  I think we were pretty naïve in that area, but it all worked out.  I had made sure that all my kids knew how to swim, but I never thought it was important for me to know.  About 10 years ago, I decided that I should learn the art of that and off I went to the warm water pool at the "Y".  I learned the art of survival and decided that swimming was not for me and I gave it up for other things.  I just never liked the water up my nose or in my ears.  Sorry.  Just not my bag.

I do not think most of you know just what Kansas weather is and how we survived back then.  It is hot in Kansas.  Hot and humid.  There were no air conditioners in those days.  The best we could hope for was to lay under a tree in the shade and with a little luck, a soft breeze would blow across our bodies and that was how we cooled ourselves.  Churches used to have cardboard fans in the rack where the hymnals were kept.  We were not allowed to steal those either.  It was not unusual for the temperature to soar above the 100 degree mark.  And of course on days when it was that hot and a cloud came up there was a damn good chance that it was bringing a tornado.  Feast or famine.  We knew if  a tornado came we were to run for the cellar, but I have already told you that no way in hell was I going down in that hell hole.

If we thought summers were bad, we knew winters were worse.  We had a wood stove in the front room, but it burned out in the night and had to be rebuilt every morning.  That was Jake's job.  Since we walked to and from every where.  When it snowed we followed in Jake's footprints going to school.  I do not remember having boots when I was little, but I do recall at one point Jake grew out of his and they were handed down to me.  Does anyone remember galoshes?  They were black and had 4 or 5 buckles on the front to hold them on.  I would rather have been caught stark naked in a snowbank then to be caught dead in those things.  Of course mother gave me that lecture on "pride going before the fall and a haughty spirit before destruction" and I wore the damn things to school.  In later years I worked and made enough money to buy my first new pair of boots.  I went to Warringtons Dry Goods and they had two pairs in my size.  One pair was brown rubber and the other was white with fur around the top.  I wanted the white pair so bad I could taste it, but I bought the brown pair so as not to be prideful.  What a friggin' moron I was in those days!

I recall mother making me a new coat.  It was light teal corduroy and had been something else previously, but she carefully took it apart and cut a pattern to fit me.  I was so proud!  I wore it to school as soon as it was finished and some boy said, "So you got a new coat.  It is still old and it is not pretty."  Kids are so mean at that age.  I would like to say it did not bother me, but it did.  Until you live in a world where everything is hand me downs, you can not know the feelings.  I tried to just be happy that I had a coat that no one had worn before me, but somehow the joy was gone.

When I entered high school it was in Plevna, Kansas and I lived with my Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield.  I stayed there for 5 months until Grandma Haas passed away.  Then I was moved back to Nickerson and enrolled in Nickerson High. 

I would like to say that my life got better and I was happy at school, but that would be a lie.  I do look back on my early childhood in Nickerson as the happiest time of my life, but not at school.  I was happy at home, but I was an outcast at school and I grew to resent the snobby kids.  My best friend all through grade school was a girl named Barbara, but when we left grade school she drifted away.  By the time I reached my Sophmore year I had new friends and weekends usually were spent sneaking into Duke Bankey's home brew.  We moved to Hutchinson the year I was a senior.  I dropped out of school and my formal education was behind me.  I was now an attendee in the school of hard knocks and I graduated at the head of my class although I was never sober enough to know it. 

And then life picked me up and spun me around and landed me here on the Mesa.  So here I set looking down a very short road at what remains of my Golden years.  Sorry, but that is such an asinine statement.  I am once more reminded of one of Mother's jewels of wisdom.  I was beating my chest once and she had told me I was my own worst enemy.  At the time I thought she was nuts, but as I contemplate that next hill I have to climb I hear the echoes of another of her adages and I think this was her best.  It was "Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."  She was right.  I spent many years sowing the wind and now it is time for my harvest.  I gotta' say, it got here a whole lot faster then I thought it would.  Yesterday I was young, but the stop sign is coming up fast!

The Golden Years? My dying a**!

Let me see.  To bed at 9:00.  Awake at 2:00 AM to pee.  Back to bed to contemplate the fate of the world.  Doze off.  Up again at 4:00 to guess what? Back to bed to contemplate actually getting up and getting an early start on the day.  Oh, hell yes.  Like I am so busy I need to get up that early.  Sadly one of these mornings I will not even get up and who is going to know?  Oh, yeah, the dogs and that damn cat who have to eat several meals a day all home cooked and chuck full of fresh vegetables.  So at 5:00 I give it up as a lost cause and give the animals their treats.

Not that my animals are spoiled, but they need a treat for going to bed and a treat for getting up.  They also require treats throughout the day for simply going out to the bathroom, coming in after going out to the bathroom, for helping me let the geese either out or in, for staying home while I go to the store, or barking at the UPS man, or the trash man, or the airplane going over.  But this post is not about my spoiled rotten animals.  It is about my golden years and what a friggin' joke they are.

Gone are the days when I could actually cut my own toenails.  Gone are the days when my yard was always mowed and the roses were blooming and the weeds were under control.  Gone are the days when the car was clean and my floor was swept and the sink clear of dishes.  Gone are the days when I really gave a shit about anything.  My bones are stiff, my joints creek and I can not hear what you are mumbling about over there.

I have had some pretty sad days in my life, but the saddest one of all was about 2 weeks after my husband had passed and I was standing and looking at his picture on the wall and it dawned on me that I would never again be held by a man who loved me completely.  I would never be able to just turn off the stove and go out to eat because he just wanted to take me. 
No more fishing trips. 
No more running up to Cripple Creek.
No more peanut shells on the floor.
No more heated debates over politics.
No more watching me mow the grass.
No more walking up behind me and putting his arms around me and laying his head on my back.
No more anything.

I did start dating, but the first guy died.  The second one told me, "I always felt like I was standing in Kenny's shadow."  As it turned out, he probably was.  Mother always told me that divorces were easy, because there was usually hard feelings on both parts.  But when the partner dies, they take on sainthood.  You forget the little things that irritated you and the partner is remembered as perfect.
Mother was so wise. 

I miss sharing happy times.  I miss sharing sad times.  I miss sharing little victories I win.  I miss showing him what I did down in the sewing room and I miss cooking for him.  And I miss setting in the front yard with the animals and watching the world go by.  I miss him.

Well, I need to go down one level and pick up the mouse body.  Thanks, Icarus.  I really have nothing planned for today, but I know I have to get started on my day.  Put my memories away and mark another day off the calendar.

All I can say, is have a nice day and enjoy what you have while it is there to be enjoyed.  Matter while you can, because time is fleeting.  Time and tide wait for no man.

Thursday, January 28, 5:15 PM So now what do I do?

I have calendars all over the place.  I even have one on my desk top computer that dings to remind me I have something to do.  Usually I have a vague idea anyway, but a little reminder is always nice in case I get a tad bit forgetful.  I know I am supposed to meet up with Kenna this morning.  She will give me a call at some point after her doctor's appointment.  Wednesday is open for the time being, but Thursday is a mystery.  Written on the back of the ONA paper is a notation  "Thursday, January 28, 5:15 PM".   That is all I have written and that meeting was last night.  No name.  No place.  No dress code.  Nada.

I have asked everyone I can think of if they have any idea what that is about and of course there is more blank looks then I can tell you.  They are actually all blank looks.  I look at them with a blank look and they return a blank look.   So, I am appealing to anyone who reads this to call me immediately if I am meeting you on Thursday.

Oh, crap!  I remember seeing an advertisement that shows an appointment like that only it said "Fred's heart attack will happen tomorrow at 3:15."  Wonder if that is my wake up call and I wonder if I better go get some of that medicine?

I have a dentist appointment someday, but that is not it.  Doctor is once a year and always the first one of the day.  I do not usually go anywhere after 4:00 cause I have chores to do.  All I can say is "Damn it all to hell!!"

I had a lady friend tell me the other day that she thought she needed a keeper.  I told her I could be her keeper and that would be like the blind leading the blind.  Maybe I need a keeper or at least some sort of an overseer.

So here is the deal...If you are reading this and plan on seeing me at 5:15 on Thursday, call me so I know where I am going.  Ask your friends also.  If we all put our heads together maybe we can come up with something.  In the meantime, I shall go look at that piece of paper some more.  I may take a nap!  Oh, maybe I will bake a pie.  Or cookies!  Oh, look...a butterfly.

Customer Service could be the key to our salvation!

After much wringing of my hands and holding of my head and balancing of the sorry little checkbook, I decided that a new computer is a definite must.  Since I needed ink anyway and I was in Pueblo West instead of at church I decided to stop at Staples.  I always go there when I need anything since I get a 2% discount when I use the American Express card and they usually seem pretty friendly.  So I whipped the little gray Ford into a parking place and went inside. 
I saw the counter where they work on computers and fix them and thought I would stop there first.
The man was busy with a young lady so I went over and got my ink.  Since he was still busy, I went to take a look at what they had in the line of computers.  Not much on the one end and since the clerk was busy visiting with another clerk and a customer(?) I had to walk around another counter and come in from the back side.  No problem since I can still walk.  Not much on that end either and no one in sight to ask without interrupting, which I do not like to do.  So back to the repair counter where that clerk was still talking with the young woman.
Since I was meeting someone for lunch I thought I better just pay for the ink and go.  No one at the service desk.  No bell to ring that I could see.  I stood there for 2 or 3 minutes and finally decided that I must be invisible since I had been in the store at this time over 10 minutes and had neither made eye contact with any one, nor been acknowledged in any way.  Rather then just walk out with the ink I left it lay on the counter.  Bet they think they have ghosts there.
After lunch I called my step daughter who had recommended Best Buy.  Yes she would meet me there.  Since I was closer I got there much quicker.  Immediately a clerk was by my side.  In very short order I had gathered the things I wanted.  Well, not really what I wanted since I am still on Windows Vista and that is now obsolete and Windows 7 soon will be.  I got an HP tower with Windows 8 and a new monitor and a mouse.  Oh, and the tri-pack of ink that matches the one I left at Staples.  No step daughter yet, but I am a big girl.  I managed to buy almost $500 worth of stuff and put the points on her account.  Unfortuneately, I am now getting her email and I do not know why, but I suspect.
Business all done and he loaded all this on a low cart, thanked me and pointed to the door.  I am sorry, but at that moment I could have cried.  I really expected to be helped to the car.  Or at least asked if I would like help.  So I dropped my purse on the cart and started that way.  In a computer store there are lots of obstacles, but I made it to the door.  Getting across a rough place in the concrete and keeping my load from jumping off the cart took about all this 71 year old broad could do to accomplish.  In all fairness a couple clerks looked at me as I rearranged the load so as not to lose the monitor on the ashphalt.  As I reached my car, my step daughter pulled up.  She helped me put it in the car.  Very happy about that since my back has been crippling me for 3 months and is just now getting so I am not in constant pain.
I explained to her that this was not right.  An old woman should have been offered a little assistance and not just sent out the door with $500 worth of stuff and hope she could make it to the car without being mugged or dropping the whole thing.  She was in agreement with me on that.
I brought my stuff home and she called to tell me that she had discussed this with the manager and he had said. " It is Corporate policy that the clerk not go to the car with the customer unless they are ASKED by the customer to do so. "  She told them they might want to rethink that one.  I am not a person that ASKS for help.  Never did it; never will.  I go to the grocery and they ask me if I would like help out to my car.  When I went to Staples a trip or so back and bought a printer, they loaded it for me.  Every where I go I get offers for assistance, but not at Best Buy.
So the crux here is this...businesses are suffering because people are not buying.  What a surprise!  I go to the store and finding a clerk is usually an effort in futility.  I gather my whatever I want and go to the counter and maybe someone is there to ring me up.  A couple weeks ago I had made an appointment to see someone.  On the day of the said appointment I received a call that they could not keep the appointment.  What am I to do?  Well make an appointment for next week.  I am busy next week.  Well, you have to make one then.  No I don't.  Here let me just hang up and call someone who will see me this week.  And I did.
I rarely if ever shop at Safeway any more.  Know why?  I stand in the checkout line and wait.  I wait while the clerks visit with each other and whoever will listen to them talk about the grandkids or the Bronco's, or what ever.  The last time I went there and managed to drop over $80 and never made eye contact with the clerk, was the last time.  King Soopers has a new policy; you do not have to wait in line and they will open another register if you do.  In and out and they actually make eye contact and say a few kind words.  And that, my friend, is called Customer Service.
It amazes me that they call us old people crabby, bitchy and whatever else comes to mind, but you know what?  After 70 years of living on this big green ball, I have decided that I am going to be treated with a miniscule amount of respect or I will take my little pile of money some where else to someone who will treat me with kindness.  I can not help that I got old, what I can help is what businesses I will support.  At this point in my life if I have to ASK you to help me, you may just find yourself standing at your counter with a tri-pack of ink, or a basket full of groceries.  I have decided to set the computer up because I seriously entertained the idea of returning it and telling them why.  Instead I will not return to Best Buy for anything.
As a matter of fact, when I buy something online, I immediately get a receipt and a thank you letter.  It is a form letter, but there it is.  Then in just a few days, whatever I ordered is delivered to my house and the UPS man or mailman or whoever brought it smiles and asks me how it is going.  Then I get another letter that asks if everything was satisfactory.  More of that stuff called Customer Service.  Brick and mortar stores could learn from the faceless business men and women online.





 

The worst part about old age is getting there.

Did you ever just stop and think, "Where did the time go?  When did this happen? I am old!"  I did that today.  I realized that I am no longer young!  I did not feel old this  morning when I got up, but suddenly came the dawning of the realization that there will be no going back, no second chance at a first anything.  This is it and it is down hill from here to the end.  From the cradle to the grave sort of thing.

It seems like only yesterday, I was a little barefooted kid running the streets in Nickerson, Kansas without a care in the world. I do not remember being cold, but I don't remember being warm.  I do not remember being hungry, but i don't remember being full, either.  I went to school and apparently I learned something.  I remember babysitting to buy my mother a stainless steel mixing bowl because I had broken her glass one.  I remember clod fights, kick the can, watching the calf die, and eating green peaches.  I remember Howard Fein poking his false teeth out at me and scaring me half to death.  I remember many things, but I don't remember getting older.

I remember having babies, catching fish, and getting divorced.  I remember burying my brother, sister, father, mother, friends, husband, and pets.  I remember tears and laughter, good times and bad times, having money and being broke, but for the life of me, I can not remember growing old.  It just seems like one day I was young and the next day I was not.  The body that used to jump the fence, run a mile, dance to the twist, and unload 50 pound bags of feed, just quit cooperating.  The mind that was so quick with a comeback has slowed to a crawl.  Now the body seeks creature comforts of warmth and a soft bed.  The mind likes to drift back to another day and time.  Back to when the kids were babies and all I needed to be happy was a roof over my head, food in my belly and hope for tomorrow. 

Now my life stretches before me like a long black, endless ribbon of a highway with no beginning and no end.  Do all people face this mortality?  What a waste!  We start out as helpless little babies needing someone to care for us and move through a maze called life to end up as helpless old people needing someone to care for us.  Oh, the irony of it all!

I wish I had it all to do over!  If I could have another chance I would seize each day and savor it from dawn to dark.  I would examine every minute of every day and write each night in my journal and plan every tomorrow so that every day would be important to me and to everyone I knew.  I would hold my mother tight.  I would sing to my brother.  I would rock my children.  I would have been a missionary to the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick.  I would not have shed selfish tears for myself, but would have wept for the world and would have made it a better place instead of just drifting through in my own willful way.

But, alas, I can change nothing.  I set here a lonely old woman with my delusions of grandeur, and wish it were different.  But all my wishing changes nothing.  I just hope that when I get up to the pearly gates I can remember the one quote that fits this situation:  "Of all the things, of mice and men, the greatest of all, What might have been."  Or something along that line.

So just what is this thing called retirement and how is it different than working myself to death?

As I was digging in the little area behind the house, with sweat pouring off the little pointed head and my back in spasms, it dawned on me that I am now officially retired and am enjoying my leisure time? Question mark is the proper mark there, because, I am not sure this is how it is supposed to be.

Seems like retirement should involve some sort of sitting around and having naps and things like that. As I recall, I worked very hard the first 50 years to raise kids, pay into my Social Security, establish myself as a respected member of society and gloried in planning all the things I would do when I retired.

Ok, so here I am all retired and while it is mostly pretty good, there are a few drawbacks I did not forsee. The homestead is paid for, but there are the taxes, insurance, utilities, upkeep and things like that which amount to as much as I would pay for a place in town. So, while the Social Security and small pension do cover the necessities, there is always the expensive of wanting to have an actual life!

This entails having a small income on the side which is derived by doing something to make a few extra bucks. Earning of the few extra bucks means missing the nap. Then there is the matter of the grunt work around the place. So I can either do it myself or earn more extra bucks to pay someone else to do it for me. There went that other nap!

Assisted Living Facility has already told me that if I check in there, they have a no duck or goose policy. Imagine that! So guess I am going to remain here on the farm and enjoy this thing called retirement until I work myself into an early grave, but guess what! I am not alone on this and the only ones who seem to be doing the nap things are the ones who planned way better than I did!

But, you know what? I would not have it any other way. While the sitting on the decks waving off the bees and the taking of the nap looks really good sometimes, mostly I like the active life and earning and spending of the almighty dollar! So while I may not see you on the golf course, I will see you when I am jogging down the lane and you pass by in your big fine car. I am the one who smiles and waves! I am the nutty one!